Places in Lombok

Sire Fast becoming Lombok’s most upmarket enclave, the jutting Sire (or Sira) peninsula is blessed with gorgeous, broad white-sand beaches and good snorkelling offshore. Three opulent resorts are now established here, alongside a couple of fishing villages and some amazing private villas. There’s one wonderful boutique midrange property in the[…]

Senaru & Batu Koq These scenic villages merge into one along a steep road with sweeping Rinjani and sea views. Most visitors here are volcano-bound but beautiful walking trails and spectacular waterfalls beckon to those who aren’t. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia/senaru-batu-koq

Gili Meno Gili Meno is the smallest of the three islands and the perfect setting for your Robinson Crusoe fantasy. Even in high season Meno still feels delightfully tranquil. Most accommodation is strung out along the east coast, near the widest and most picturesque beach. Inland you’ll find scattered homesteads,[…]

Kuta Imagine a crescent bay, turquoise in the shallows and deep blue further out. It licks a huge, white-sand beach, as wide as a football pitch and framed by headlands. It’s deserted, save for a few fishermen, seaweed farmers and their children. Now imagine a coastline of nearly a dozen[…]

Gili Air Closest to Lombok, Gili Air falls between Gili T’s sophistication and less-is-more Meno. It has both space and life. Air was the first Gili to be settled by Bugis and Sasak fishing families, and there remains a strong, rural community in place. Though tourism does dominate the island’s[…]

Gili Trawangan Well, the secret is definitely out. Long an obscure speck in the big blue, Gili Trawangan has become a paradise of global repute, ranking alongside Bali and Borobudur as one of Indonesia’s essential destinations. Settled just 50 years ago (by Bugis fishermen from Sulawesi), travellers arrived in the[…]

Mataram Lombok’s capital is a blending sprawl of several (once separate) towns with fuzzy borders: Ampenan (the port); Mataram (the administrative centre); Cakranegara (the business centre, often called simply ‘Cakra’) and Bertais and Sweta to the east, where you’ll find the bus terminal. Stretching for 12km from east to west[…]

Senggigi Lombok’s only bona fide tourist resort, Senggigi enjoys a spectacular location along a series of sweeping bays, with white-sand beaches sitting pretty below a backdrop of jungle-clad mountains and coconut palms. In the late afternoon a setting blood-red sun sinks into the surf next to the giant triangular cone[…]

Lombok Lombok is the most popular destination in Nusa Tenggara, with the fabled Gili Islands drawing visitors for action both in and out of the water, mighty Gunung Rinjani luring trekkers, and the big breaks on the south coast a magnet for surfers. Matram, Lombok’s capital, is a good spot[…]